The worst thing that could happen
by Mimosa de Naranja
Summary: The last episode of the fourth season ended with plans for a group dinner, a blind date and Watson asking "What's the worst thing that could happen?". I took that as a challenge. I would like to give thanks to my beta wtchcool, the best and kindest.
1. Chapter 1

**The worst thing that could happen.**

The dinner was all wrong.

Oh, not the _dinner._ The food was good, the restaurant was very nice, and the ambiance was relaxing. Their dinner companions had agreed to the reunion without too much fuss, and it seemed that Marcus and Lin were being nice about the blind date situation.

Things started to go wrong after their meals were finished, when the sale of the safe house had already been discussed. Marcus, sitting in front of Joan's sister, had spent the time observing her with discretion, listening to the story about how the safe house landed in Sherlock's hands and how "Watson seems to prefer a dilapidated brownstone to a luxury apartment", in Sherlock's words. But he couldn't resist when Lin gave them an estimation of the price on the market.

"How much? Man, I would have abandoned my own mother for the opportunity to live rent-free in a place like that."

"Rent-free?" Joan asked, confused.

"I wasn't going to be her landlord" explained Sherlock. "The place was going to be hers."

That made Marcus open his mouth in shock and grab the table edge with both hands.

"You mean it was a _gift_? He was going to give you a luxury apartment _in New York_? And you rejected a luxury apartment in New York to stay with him?"

"Calm down, Marcus. It's not such a big deal" said Joan.

"Not a big deal. Right. Whatever. Lin, what would you have done?"

"For a place like that? I would have ditched him so fast you could see dust under my feet." said Lin, amused.

Sherlock was watching them sternly.

"You two" he said "are made for each other, and I'm not saying that as a compliment. You share greed as one of your definitory character traits. I knew that about Lin, of course, but I have to say that Inspector Bell is being a disappointment."

Lin started to laugh, but Marcus seemed to be hurt by the comment.

"Oh, come on! It's not fair to blame us for wanting something better than we have. And we aren't exactly talking about selling a friend for a couple of hundreds. This is just... distancing yourself a little for several millions!"

"The amount of money is not important. Greed is not a financial issue, but a heart one. That's why Watson will always have access to everything I own."

"Because she doesn't want it?" replied Marcus, a little sarcastically.

But before Sherlock could reply Joan felt she had to intervene.

"Okay, enough. Lin, thank you very much for your assistance. Marcus, I'm happy where I am now, thank you. I'm lucky to have a place that I can call home, and I don't feel the need to "have something better", like you said, because I already have what I want."

"A psychotic partner and a dangerous job?" tried Marcus.

"A ruined house and no sex life?" tried Lin.

Joan had never felt so outraged. That was how her friends saw her? She was going to give her sister and the policeman a piece of her mind when Sherlock spoke up.

"I have to protest about this treatment" he said, emphatically, and Joan got her hopes up. Her partner had been born with the gift of eloquence, and he always defended her. In fact, there had been other times when he has defended her so vehemently that she had been forced to drag him away to calm him down and assure him that, while she was grateful for the sentiment, it wasn't necessary to rip a new one on everybody that pointed out one of her many faults. But this time she was going to let him have at it. All the way. Cut to the bone. Unleash the beast, Sherlock. Destroy them both.

"I am not in any way psychotic." he continued. "Psychosis is a serious illness characterized by an impaired relationship with reality. People who are psychotic may have either hallucinations or delusions, and I think that in all this time I have made it obvious that my vision of reality is crystal clear."

It was then with his crystal clear vision that he saw Joan staring him down, and he paled visibly. Never before had he reviewed a whole conversation in his head so fast, but he broke a new record and stammered a little.

"I... I mean... the job is indeed dangerous, and the brownstone is in dire need of repairing and painting. And it would be pointless to deny... well... that."

He then tried to hide behind a sip of water and, Marcus, sympathetic, used his right hand to shield his friend from the stare of death.

"Wow, Joan, you might want to dial your eyes back a notch or two, you're gonna turn the poor guy into stone."

Lin slid over a little to give her half-sister a side hug.

"Joannie, every person at this table loves you dearly, and we just want the best for you. And, frankly, honey, it would be for the best if you finally open your eyes and see."

"See what?" replied Joan, still sulking a little.

"See that you're already in a relationship and the only thing left for you to do is to realize it and act on it. And this goes for you too" said Lin to Sherlock.

"What is she talking about?" Joan asked Sherlock, in an exaggerated whisper that could be easily heard.

"I don't have the foggiest idea" replied Sherlock using her same tone.

"You're very funny" continued Lin, "but single people don't organize blind dates for their friends."

"What are you implying, Lin?" asked Joan.

Lin got comfortable, pleased with the attention, and began to explain her theory.

"Think about it. This" said she waving her hand at Marcus "is a very fine man. Handsome, clean, good manners, in a steady job, and incredibly nice..."

"Thank you" Exhibit A tried to say shyly.

"... and you're shamelessly offering him to me. Why? Because you're over. Really over. Not over in the sense of 'weeeeell, I'm not looking to date at the moment, let's see in the future', but over in the sense of 'I don't have to do this anymore'. Because you're already in a relationship."

"With my job?" asked Watson.

"No, silly! With Sherlock!" concluded Lin, waving her hand at Exhibit B, who was sitting in silence, watching the scene with the same horrified face with which one observes a train crash.

"Lin," said Joan in a patient voice, "of course we have a relationship. We're friends, and roommates..."

"Roommates? Do you want to talk to me about roommates? Honey, I've had more roommates than you have fingers in your hands. Both hands. I've had straight men, gay men, and women too, also gay and straight..."

"I suddenly pity a lot of people" whispered Sherlock, almost getting Joan not to notice.

"Don't interrupt her, this is getting interesting" replied Marcus, staring at Lin.

"Will you two shut up?" hissed Joan.

"... and not one of them, listen to me, sis, not even one, gave this vibe I'm getting with you two."

"We give a vibe" said Joan with the perfect deadpan.

"Oh, yes."

Joan looked at Marcus, who was nodding at everything Lin had said. She looked at Sherlock too, but she could find no help there, as he was half staring at Lin, half sulking. Joan sighed.

"Ok, I'll bite. What vibe?"


	2. Chapter 2

To her surprise, it was Sherlock who answered.

"I think she means to say that people perceive us as close but not together. As you know, men and women are not supposed to be just friends, so other friends and relatives, as well as society in general, always look for the romantic side to every conversation or gesture."

Then he did something that was so completely out of character that for one second Joan thought that he had been drinking alcohol without her noticing. He reached across the table and took her hand in his with a gentleness that surprised her.

It wasn't the first time he'd touched her, of course. There had been casual gestures along the way, from the brief contact of fingers when one of them passed something -a mug, a file- to the other, to the more steady contact of a hand in an arm. All practical touches, easy to explain.

But this was a caress. In a public place. In front of her sister and a police officer (that is, in front of the entire precinct, as policemen were the biggest gossips in the world). And just after her sister's claims that they were in a relationship. So, she reasoned, it wasn't really a caress, but a statement. He was using her, and, more specifically, her hand, to demonstrate something.

Her mind told her all this, but her body didn't buy it. She melted all the same.

"As you are aware," Sherlock kept going "Watson and I are extremely compatible, having progressed from an acquaintanceship to a full partnership in a close domestic arrangement with hardly any disruption. People see this as having the right ingredients to develop a successful romantic relationship, something that is so hard to find. So they look at this romantic relationship as the next natural step, and wait for the signals that it is already happening. When they don't see those signals, as in this case, they imagine them. That's the source of their so-called 'vibe'. It makes them feel better with themselves."

Well, she wasn't imagining the fast heartbeat that was threatening to tear down her breastbone, or the tremble of her body, and she hoped that nobody else had noticed them. And what she needed now, right now, was for him to release her hand so she could calm down. And regain her breath, preferably before they turned their attention to her again.

But the moment he did that she didn't feel relief, but sorrow. Her hand was left cold, even when she brought it to her lap to envelop it with her right one. It had come as a shock, having enjoyed the contact so much, and she wondered what else she would enjoy given the opportunity.

And then she looked up and saw that her partner was staring at her with an unexpected intensity, and the answer was suddenly clear. _Everything_. It was a dangerous thought, and Joan rushed to get rid of it before he could read her mind, as she was sure he could.

She tried to regain control of her breathing while Sherlock asked her half-sister "is that what you were trying to say, Lin?"

"I was trying to say that everybody on this side of the Earth has noticed that you devour her with your eyes when she's not looking, but you can have it your way, honey" Lin replied.

Marcus' belly laugh could be heard through the entire restaurant, as could Sherlock's indignant cries.

"I've never done such a thing!" he protested.

"Oh, come on", said Lin, teasing, "you obviously adore her, you have it written all over your face!"

"And you can read faces, can you?" said Sherlock.

"Me? I'm a pro. Do you think that everybody that starts in real estate gets to sell luxury homes? I started low, honey, and worked my way up. I show an apartment, and the wife sees the small kitchen and suddenly she looks at her husband, and then the kitchen, and then at her husband again, and that's when I have to stop talking and start thinking fast. And then I comment about this friend of mine that tore down the kitchen wall to give warmth to the dining room and light and air to the kitchen, and boom, her face lights up, and I know that the only thing left is signing the papers. I'm that good."

"You have to be joking" replied Sherlock.

"Oops", said Lin suddenly, "I gotta go, it's incredibly late and I still have to take a cab to my home". She got up and began picking up her things, ignoring Sherlock's indignant protests that leaving in the middle of an argument was cheating.

Both Joan and Marcus stood up as well, and while the former was relieved to end the conversation, the latter tried to go back at it as soon as Lin dissapeared inside her ride.

"I hope you forgive us for trying to set you up, Marcus" she apologized when they were out of the restaurant, waiting for Sherlock to come back from the restroom.

But he waved it off, dismissing her apologies.

"She's fantastic. I would like to have half the balls she has to say everything that it's in my head. Like that about you, for example" said Marcus.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, don't take offense... I mean, you're my friend and all, only Lin's right, you know? About you and Holmes. Half the precinct thinks you're sleeping together and the other half thinks that you should."

Joan thought about it, while Marcus said his goodbyes and left to find his car. She thought about Marcus' words, and Lin's theory, and about the hand caress that was so common in other couples but that spoke volumes for them. Had she really been so blind? Had she really loved him for years and hadn't realized?

She then felt her partner at her side and, in silence, they began the short walk back home.

No, not loved, she corrected herself. Loved. With a capital L. The term "love" with a small l was something that she was already familiar with, having used it in reference to Sherlock for a long time. Only in the privacy of her own mind, of course, as she was sure that he would freak out if he knew. Likewise, although she was sure that he loved her, he had never used that word out loud. Instead he preferred to use expressions that conveyed his affection for her and made her feel appreciated.

The dinner had been a disaster -she had tried to play matchmaker and it had backfired on her, making her the target-, but it had certainly been eye-opening. Although she already knew and accepted that strangers often mistook them for a couple, she wouldn't have guessed that their close friends would do that as well. So that could only mean one thing: Sherlock had been wrong when he had said that there weren't any signs of romance. There were, and she had been too busy or too self-involved to notice.

Love is a friendship set to music, thought Joan, and it seems that, just like Sherlock's experiments, you only become aware of it when the neighbours knock to complain about the volume.

"Would you like to get married, Watson?" he asked all of a sudden, interrupting her thoughts.


	3. Chapter 3

Joan couldn't hide a smile. So she wasn't the only one affected by the dinner conversation.

"Well, I don't have the same aversion to marriage that you have, so yes, maybe. Someday" she said.

He nodded, having anticipated her answer.

"And would you leave all this, then?" he asked. He didn't explain what he meant by 'this', but, as always, she understood. 'This' was the job, the house, the crimes, the long hours. Him. He had just asked her if she would leave him for another man.

"Would I have to?" she asked to gain time to think.

He shrugged.

"Our work is very time consuming and requires odd hours. I suspect that any sensible husband would get miffed at having to share his wife in the middle of the night to stake out a house or to discuss the details of a case" he said.

She thought about it. One of the strengths of her relationship with Andrew was that he understood her work and everything that entailed: the odd hours, the need to be glued to her phone and, above all that, Sherlock's constant presence.

Any other man would have felt threatened and jealous and now, after her grief for his death had subsided and she could see things more objectively, she realized that the main reason for having a relationship with him had been precisely that: he let her have a relationship with Sherlock as well. She was a little taken aback when she realized that any man that tried to limit her relationship with Sherlock would have to go.

So goodbye to her prospects of getting married, then. Even if she found another man as compliant as Andrew, it wouldn't be what she wanted. She didn't want compliant. She wanted...

Joan looked at her partner, who was still strolling at her side waiting patiently for her answer, and suddenly she got it ready.

"I won't leave again," she said. "Once when I still believed I could live a normal life was enough."

"And now you think you can't?" he asked. "Live a normal life, I mean."

"Now I know I don't want it" she answered.

"Good, because I have something to confess" he replied, and her stomach tied itself in knots thinking about the caress in the restaurant.

"When I said that you would always have access to everything of mine, I wasn't telling the whole truth. According to the present intestate succession laws in New York, my assets would go to my father when I die. And regarding what you said earlier, about having a place that you can call home, it's equally inexact. The brownstone is not yours, and if something happened to me you would have to move. You are already in my will, of course, but I'm afraid that's something that my father could solve with ease, with me being an addict."

"I appreciate the sentiment, Sherlock, but there's little you can do to prevent your father from challenging your will. I could take care of Clyde, though" offered Joan.

"But I would like to offer an alternative" he said, going up the stairs to the brownstone, with her in tow.

"It's perfectly reasonable to assume that we are going to spend quite a long time together, probably the rest of our lives" he continued. "I'm not averse to the idea, as you imagine. Meeting you was like opening the gift of a boorish relative, and, against all expectations, finding a gold ingot. So I don't want you out of my life, nor do I want me out of yours."

Then he stopped, causing her to stop as well, and turned to her with the key in his hand.

"I'm with you for the long haul, Watson, and you just confirmed that you are as well. And, unfortunately, for us said haul will most certainly include the possibility of one of us being killed, leaving the other to fight alone. It would be reckless not to anticipate that moment leaving the surviving partner unprotected."

He got the door open but, instead of going inside, he leaned against the doorframe looking at her.

"And so I'm asking again. Would you like to get married?"


	4. Chapter 4

Joan finished walking up the stairs to stand in front of him.

"So it wasn't a question?" she asked in surprise "It was a _proposal_?"

"For practical reasons, Watson. For practical reasons. So, not a proposal, more like a... proposed course of action" he explained. "That way everything I own will be yours when I die and, in the most than probable case that one of us end in a hospital, the other will have visitation rights..."

But she walked past him and inside the house and was already at the bottom of the stairs when he caught up with her and tried to block her path.

"You are upset" he tried, and she went around him without stopping on her way upstairs.

"And you're nuts" she replied without looking at him.

He hurried to keep up with her, but she didn't slow down. At the end he had to resort to passing in front of her and getting in her way for the second time, effectively making her stop.

"You have to admit that, statistically, I'm much more prone to die before you. Not only do I have more enemies than you, but I'm also a male, and older. So everything is against me, Watson. It's very clear that you will be the survivor in this partnership" he said, but she dodged him again and kept going up the stairs.

"You're being pessimistic" she said, hurrying the last steps to her bedroom.

"Watson, you wouldn't have to worry about money for the rest of your life."

"And now you're being insulting" she said, just before slamming the door in his face.

He leaned on the doorframe, trying to continue the conversation.

"And after my little experiment in the restaurant, I thought you would be open to the idea!" he shouted to the door.

That did it. She opened the door again, causing him to stand straight, and stared at him with an unreadable expression.

"It was an experiment" she said. "You took my hand just to see how I would react."

"Well, yes... " he started "you see, I wanted to..."

The door slammed again, leaving him no choice but to keep shouting to make himself heard.

"I wanted to confirm that you wouldn't be repulsed by my touch. My experiment showed that you feel a certain attraction to me and, consequently, a marriage between the two of us would be a success!" he shouted to the door.

Suddenly the door opened again, startling him, and he was forced to back off quickly when Joan made a beeline for him. She had taken off her coat, her necktie and her shoes but somehow, clad only in a blouse and a skirt, and barefoot, she seemed more menacing than ever.

"You want to talk about attraction? Good, let's talk about it. Let's talk about this 'experiment' that you did in the restaurant, Sherlock, and how you're lying to me right now."

"I'm not lying!" he said.

"You are!" she shouted. "I know that your 'little experiment' is a load of crap! You never do an experiment when you already have the answer for it, so let's talk about how you're lying about what it was really for" she got in his face to shout at him "and how it doesn't prove anything because I told you myself months ago that I was attracted to you, you idiot!" she ended her reply hitting him in the arm.

"You didn't!" he said indignantly, trying to get out of her reach.

"Do the words 'I fell into your orbit' ring a bell, Einstein?"

"You were talking about my work!" he argued.

"I was talking about you! Why couldn't you see that?" she demanded.

He blinked in confusion.

"It didn't occur to me because our partnership is not based upon such criteria" he explained.

"And now you're talking about marriage, and it turns out that _loving_ each other is a key factor in a successful marriage. Love, Sherlock, not attraction."

"Not always. Think, for example...".

But she was having none of that.

"I think you know me well enough to imagine me entering into a marriage for money. I want something more than that."

"You want a romantic proposal?" he said, almost in accusation.

"No!" she said. "Well, yes, maybe! Sherlock, I know I'm not the girly type, but when I dreamt about my marriage proposal I never imagined it would come as a project report with its own budget item!" she shouted at him.

"We have to make practical decisions, Watson!" he shouted back. "We have a criminal organization after us, and while we've been handed a reprieve because of my father's actions, I'm sure that it will be a short one. We have time to prepare ourselves, and one of the most logical courses of action is to protect. Each other. Legally!" he shouted.

"I'm not, absolutely not, going to marry you just to grab your money, Sherlock!" she shouted back.

"You are not grabbing anything, Watson! I am the one offering it to you!" he said theatrically, using a lot of gestures.

Joan went quiet and folded her arms.

"What for?" she said in a normal tone.

"Excuse me?" he replied, confused by the sudden change of pace.

"When you give money to someone it is either charity or you are buying something. What exactly are you buying?" she explained.

"I'm afraid I don't follow you" Sherlock said.

"Let me simplify it for you: you have been very convincing about the benefits I would get from this, but what about yours?"

"Mine?"

"Yes, Sherlock, yours. What would you get out of a marriage with me?" she asked while getting closer and closer to him, making him dizzy at the thought of what would happen when she would be close enough. Then his back bumped against the opposite wall, and he realized that while she had been getting near, his body, on its own, had been retreating. Not surprising at all, he thought, given her expression. Her eyes were looking not just at his face, but his whole body, which was disconcerting and...well... Sherlock had to swallow before he could say the word in his mind... exciting. Her smile was dangerous, something that he seldom saw in his partner, and her movements, while slow, were somewhat...

 _...predatory._

Sherlock swallowed again, throat suddenly dry. Was she trying to intimidate him? She was too short for that, surely she was aware that someone with her height couldn't possibly intend to... except that he was already sweating, and trembling at the thought of her body so close to him, and she was still a good meter away.

And he had forgotten what they had been talking about.


	5. Chapter 5

"Er... could you repeat the question?" he tried in a weak voice.

"So, according to you, all we have to do is find a judge, get married, and go on with our lives like nothing happened, am I getting it right, Sherlock? We'll keep working on cases, consulting from time to time for the police, and investigating the criminal organization of your father, oh, sorry, how could I forget, _my father-in-law_ , is that right? Of course, we'll still sleep in separate rooms, so when you feel in the mood for a girl you can call one of your hookers and if I meet someone interesting I will be able to sleep with him as well, am I forgetting something?" she finished in sugary tones.

"You're mocking me" he said, hurt.

"Yes, I am. Now tell me the truth" she said, angrily.

"The truth?" he tried again.

"The truth, Sherlock. Now. I know it's not in you to be selfish, and I can see you doing something for me that would include some accommodation on your part, but this is ridiculous. What you're offering is sacrificing the rest of your life, _the rest of your life, Sherlock_ , just to give _me_ , a woman with a career and skills that can get a job in many different fields on her own, a little financial security."

"Well, it wouldn't be a little, Watson. What this entails..." but she wasn't going to hear more excuses.

"I don't buy it. You're getting something as well, and I want to know what it is."

But he didn't respond and she realized that he had decided to clam up like a sulking teenager and leave her to do all the work.

Fine with her. It wasn't the first time she had to resort to some trick or another to make him answer a question.

"It can't be the company" she began to wonder out loud. "We've just established that I'm not leaving. I guess you could try the marriage trick to try to get me tethered to you, but even with a ring on my finger I could walk away, so that's not your reason" she gave him a quick glance, looking for a reaction.

He was looking at her intensely, and that brought her mind to the restaurant. The little experiment, when he had taken her hand, and she had reacted to his touch like she would react to a lover's kiss, and then she had tried to hide it from him, but he was observing her like a hawk, before asking Lin a question...

His voice had trembled when he had talked, she realized with a shock. She had been distracted, trying to control her own breathing, but his words had registered in her mind, and he had _fucking trembled_. He had been affected as well. It must have been desire.

 _He desired her._ The mere thought of that possibility was enough to leave her breathless, and weak at the knees, but she couldn't give in until she was completely sure.

She decided to try a bolder approach.

"I know it can't be sex, because you wouldn't want to have any with me, when you can have women that are much more beautiful..." she started.

"That's not true" he protested, and Joan knew that she had him.

She got closer, but before she could get into his space he jumped out of her reach and began to pace the hallway nervously.

"It's true that the vast majority of post-pubescent, heterosexual men will invariably have a sexual desirability reflex upon seeing a female of reproductive age" he said, talking fast. "Thus the immediate discrimination that a male will make when encountering a female is whether or not he'd like to have sex with her. In our case I acknowledged that sexual urge, but I was able to get past it and focus on the non-sexual aspects of you. Fortunately, they were plenty. Enough to keep me distracted, most of the time."

"Most of the time?" she asked, incredulous. "You are saying that you find me attractive". Watson was astonished. Finding out that her partner was affected by her touch was one thing but, as with everything else between them, it was something observed and deduced, not spoken out loud.

"Besides," he continued, "we both know that I can offer you quite a few things besides my money."

"Oh, really?" she replied, amused at how he had changed the subject, "Okay, let's see what you have to offer".


	6. Chapter 6

He nodded but averted his eyes, choosing to speak to the hallway wall instead.

"As you may already know, marriages are created for a variety of reasons. The ones that endure, however, do so because they have come into being for something more significant than satisfying personal needs. In our case, Watson, our relationship has a purpose greater than serving the needs of either partner. I'm talking, of course, about our job, and the lives that we save and/or improve through our work. If you consider a marriage as an improvement of the current status, it's clear that our work will benefit, too."

He then turned to the opposite wall, turning his back on her, and kept talking to it, much softer.

"As for the things that I can do for you personally, Watson, I can take care of you when you are sick, for instance. More so, in the future there may come a time when you need some sort of assistance, and, if I'm still alive and able I could be your aide. I can be at your side whenever you're sad. I can defend you in case you can't do it yourself, and comfort you when you get hurt, or tired. And you know that I will never betray you, and anything that you fail to do will be forgiven, any mistake will be forgotten. And I will never abandon you."

He said all this quickly and without pause, as if he were reading the script inside his head. It was so robotic that it gave the impression that it was said without emotion, but Watson knew best. It meant that he had practiced these words thousands of times, adjusting them till perfection, imagining himself declaring them to her. He knew them by heart.

"I will give you my best," he continued. "I will give you what you have deserved this whole time. Because you deserve the best. You deserve someone who makes your life better. If you don't mind, I would like to be that person. And if someday you decide that you don't want to fight anymore, I'll be there to hold your hand, and we'll take the plunge together."

She slowly got closer, not daring to startle him and break the moment.

"You mean to say that you love me" she whispered to his back.

He sighed, but gave no other signal that he had heard her, nor did he turn from staring at the wall.

"It's very difficult for me to talk about... romance, Watson. I was in love with Irene. Please note that I didn't say Moriarty, or Jamie" at this point he risked a quick glance at her, but rapidly went back to looking at the wall. "I have now accepted that Irene was a different person. Even though she was the work of an actress, and the actress' personality permeated some of the aspects of her character, Jamie Moriarty is a woman that only would have attracted me for purely academic reasons, and I never would have fallen in love with her. It was hard to arrive at this conclusion, but here I am, several years later, sure that I'm not in love with Moriarty, and that the woman I once loved never existed."

There was a pause then, as if he were gathering strength before continuing, but again he preferred to address the wall in front of him rather than his partner.

"And if what I had for Irene was called love, then I can't tell you that I'm in love with you, because I'm not. This is different, Watson. Abysmally. But whatever this feeling is... well, it's more than just _like_. It's so much more. And for the past few days I've been trying to figure it out. I've been trying to fathom why there isn't some other word to describe this. I want to tell you exactly how I feel but there isn't a single damned word in the whole dictionary that can describe this state I am in now, this... feeling that is more than _liking_ you but also clearly distinct from _being in love_ with you, but I need that word. I need it because I need you to hear me say it."

She went around him, placing herself in the narrow space left between the hallway wall and his body to look into his eyes.

"Why didn't you say something before?" she asked softly, and he turned away from her gaze to walk a couple of steps and stare at another wall. She understood that. He was terrified. He had just declared his love for her and, for the moment, it was unrequited.

"Because it takes hard work and clear awareness of probable destructive outcomes if one transcends the boundary of a close but true platonic bond, and I wasn't ready to face the possibility of said outcomes" he whispered to the wall.

"You mean "destructive" like leaving the relationship entirely? Like, maybe, leaving the brownstone to live somewhere else? Starting again as a solo detective? Leaving the country? I think we're well past that, don't you think?" she said with tenderness.

"I had to be sure" he replied.

"That I wouldn't leave you" she finished for him. Then she gently put her hand on the center of Sherlock's back, and held it there. Her intention had been to reach out to him, offer him physical contact and strength, but it visibly had the opposite effect, as he turned around and leaned his back against the wall, facing her with the expression of a desperate man about to give up.

"I will do anything you want, anything you ask of me, if you let me stay at your side for the rest of my life" he whispered while staring at her, and her heart finished breaking.

"That's all?" she asked, fighting the tears that were already in her eyes, "Shouldn't you ask me if I love you back?"

"It doesn't matter, Watson. That's not a requirement and will never be."

No wonder that women loved to be with him, she thought. He gave and gave and rarely asked for anything in return.

 _Bitches._

"But I want you to ask me" she said, tears running freely down her face.

"Why would I want to do that?" he asked, staring firmly at the floor.

Then it dawned on her, what he had been trying to do all along. All his life. Every time he talked about not being good with personal connections, he had been lying. He was just tired of being rejected, and had opted to be the rejector instead, isolating himself from every person that dared to try to know him better. And there she was, the only person allowed to see his core, and instead of the brave detective in the store window she had discovered a trembling child in the basement.

"You think I'm going to say no" she said, dumbfounded. "That's why you're using all the wrong reasons to start a marriage. It's because you're afraid that the right reasons don't apply to you." She couldn't believe it. After all we've been through together, after she stayed against the odds, and he still thought he wasn't worthy?

She got between his legs and put her hand under his chin, forcing him to look at her.

"We have a lot of unspoken rules around here, have you noticed?" she said, softly. "And you seem to think that disliking you is one of them, despise the fact of me bringing it down one time after another. Well, I'm going to bring it down for good this time. The way I feel about you doesn't come with a set of rules, Sherlock. There are no rules that say that if you do this or that I won't care any more. Right now I'm so entangled with you that I don't know what to call you. Roommate, friend, partner... I tried to separate myself from you, but I discovered that I don't want to live like that. And then, while I was aware that such a line shouldn't be crossed, I got as close to you as possible, to the point that my heart skipped a beat every time you smiled."

She looked into his eyes, trying to gauze his reaction, but all she was seeing was astonishment. She decided to continue. He didn't deserve less than that.

"I knew I was already treading water, but you have a way of looking at me that make me wants to drown and say to hell with consequences." She breathed deeply, trying to be as brave as he had been before, and finish her piece. "There's never going to be someone else, Sherlock. There's only you".

"You can't love me" he said, incredulous.

Suddenly she was close, too much close, and he felt her hands on either side of his face, her breath on his lips, and her whole body glued to his _anditwastoomuchsensation_ and her eyes stuck on his.

"Don't tell me who I can and can't love, do you hear me?" she demanded agressively, "don't put limits on me, Sherlock. I can love the whole world, I can love any person of any age, gender and race. I can love you if I am in love with you and I can't help it..."

But then she couldn't talk any more because he was closing her mouth with his own, not like a tease, buf fiery, passionate and demanding, his hands on her head and her back and then on her head again and she couldn't think straight, so when several minutes later he broke the first kiss she started the second, and the world fell away around them.


	7. Chapter 7

Epilogue:

It would be easy to say that they lived happily ever after, but nobody does. What people have is not a constant happiness, but a series of Moments.

This moment, this _now_ , was later, much later, after the kissing, the whispering, the melting and the laughing had been paused. Not finished, because it would never be finished, but paused because of the exhaustion.

"So we have a deal" she had said, trying to find out where her underwear had gone. "There's no need to get married."

"We always had a deal. I just want to put it down in writing", he had replied from her bed.

And _this_ was another _now_ , much, much later, after the vowing, the kissing, the signing and the celebrating, where Gregson tried to give marriage advice to Holmes because he was restless, without knowing that the side looks Watson was giving him meant that she wanted to get home _now_ , and _that_ was causing him to get restless, because that _now_ couldn't happen soon enough.

And another _now_ , much, much later, after the dismantling, the arresting, the forgiving and the jail visiting. After the fighting that was long due because of the stress, and the late hours, and the lack of sleep.

"You can't love me because you're lonely, or because I'm the only one who doesn't piss you off! I want to piss you off, Sherlock, I want to get on your fucking nerves!".

"Well, you're doing a splendid job then!", he said, slamming the door on his way out.

And another _now_ , not much later, barely ten minutes, when he was kissing her and she was kissing him, and they were murmuring apologies against each other's mouths. When they were holding one another afterwards, after the kissing, the biting, the screaming and the panting.

"Were we ever strangers? The day I first saw you there was something even then, though I didn't know what. I think that I would have recognized you in any place, years before that day. It was like being let into the warmth after a lifetime of winter."

"I'm not a warm person, Watson."

"You are to me," she said, kissing him again.

And another...


End file.
